Creamed broccoli

A little garlic, cream, and parmesan transform ho hum frozen broccoli to a delicious side dish that even my 5-year-old, hot-dogs-for-breakfast kid will eat.

Take me to the recipe!

I don’t actually feed my kid hotdogs for breakfast, but he WISHES that I would. I’m pretty sure he’s cried about it at least once this week.

How are you all feeling about your kids’ nutrition during quarantine? I know I’ve been eating like a maniac for a few reasons. First, I’m nursing, so I need at least 10,000 calories a day, right? Second, we can’t go anywhere or do anything, so we’ve definitely been using food as recreation, pleasure, and fun; all of the things we used to get outside of our house and with people besides one another. Third, I’m awake so many more hours per day with a newborn that I have more time to graze in a fatigued stupor.

All of this has set a really bad example for my kid. He wants to eat only comfort, pleasure foods and I’m too tired to fight it a lot of the time. Also, he’s kind of a jerk when he’s hungry, which I’m pretty sure is genetic. This broccoli has been helpful because I feel good about him eating something green and he feels good about eating something with cream and cheese.

I’m really trying not to sweat the eating too much. I think we’re all feeling like some degree of failure if the number of “It’s okay to______ or not to _______during quarantine” think pieces I’ve seen is any indication. It’s hard to do anything all the time. Like I always say, too much of a good thing is still too much. Family time is great, but no one gets a break from each other. I like being a homebody, but what I wouldn’t give for a playdate so my kid could destroy someone else’s house for a change.

If eating a fourth cookie means I can laugh at the AWFUL haircut my husband gave M and not cry with rage because he looks like Eleven from Stranger Things, so be it.

A couple of notes:

• This recipe is barely adapted from one I found on epicurious. Some commenters didn’t love it, but extra Parmesan and garlic really help, I think.

• This is a little soupier than other “creamed” things like spinach or corn. A lot of recipes call for a roux, which I opted against because I wanted this recipe to be fast and also, AP flour is about as scarce here as toilet paper or hope. What? Too dark??

• I kind of like the soupyness because we all have enough homemade bread to last until the next pandemic, right? So we need something to sop up with all those carbs. This is also nice tossed with some noodles or zoodles or the like.

• I use frozen broccoli for this recipe because I feel like that might be more accessible currently, but you can definitely use fresh broccoli.

• If you don’t have a shallot, sub in some really finely minced onion or just another clove of smashed garlic.

• When I say “well-smashed” I really want you to give the garlic a good squish with the side of your knife. Get aggressive. You want each clove to be in several pieces.

Creamed broccoli

1 bag frozen broccoli or 1 large head of raw broccoli (about 4 cups of florets and stems)
1 Tbsp butter
4 large garlic cloves, smashed well
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
1 cup heavy cream  
½ cup grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Yield: About 3-4 cups of broccoli
Time: 15 minutes, all active

In a large bowl, microwave the frozen broccoli until completely defrosted, about 4 minutes. Drain and place the broccoli on a paper towel while making the sauce.

If using fresh broccoli, bring a large pot of water to a boil and drop in the florets. Cook for 3-4 minutes and drain. Set on a paper towel to dry while making the sauce.  

In a medium pot, melt butter over a medium flame. Add the garlic and shallots and cook until fragrant, about one minute, reducing the heat if the shallot or garlic start to burn.

Add the cream and allow it to bubble. If it isn’t coming to a boil, increase the heat slightly. Similarly, if the cream is scalding or bubbling too fast, reduce the heat slightly. You want the cream to bubble pretty vigorously and it’s okay if it bubbles up and seems to expand, but we don’t want browning or burning.

Keep a close watch and stir occasionally until the cream has reduced and thickened so that when you scrape the bottom of the pot, the liquid doesn’t immediately re-cover the metal, about 4-5 minutes.

Add the parmesan and stir until melted, about 30 seconds.

Carefully taste the sauce (don’t burn your mouth!) and season with salt and pepper.

Add the broccoli and cook, stirring, until the sauce has covered the broccoli to your liking. The broccoli will release some water and thin out the sauce.     

Mushroom pasta

I know we’re all eating canned goods from here on out, so maybe bookmark this one as a spring-y, post-virus meal for when the world feels real again? Or, if you impulse bought mushrooms during your panic shop, use them now!

I don’t want to hear more about this freaking virus: Take me to the recipe!

I haven’t posted much in recent weeks because, and I know I’m not alone here, I’ve been in a deep, dark pit of worry about Coronavirus. While healthy kids are at much lower risk for developing symptoms, I’m 38 weeks pregnant and about to bring a newborn into this mess. Like, any day now. Newborns are not kids. This also means, I have to go to a HOSPITAL in a few days, just about the last place I want to be.

Oh, and we’re self-quarantining for as long as possible because we need a grandparent to come watch M when I go into labor and all of them have between two and seven of the risk factors that make this a much more serious illness. Can you imagine if we infected one of them because we were carriers and didn’t know?

And, in the event that one of us gets sick, I don’t know what that means for delivery. If M or Ethan are sick and a grandparent can’t come, do I have to give birth alone? Do I have to stay in the hospital and away from M for longer? Will I be separated from my newborn if it’s me that develops symptoms?

Everything feels so scary and overwhelming and unknown. I don’t generally think of myself as someone with strong “mama bear” instincts, but this crisis has awakened a desperate need to protect my family.

So, anyway, you probably just want to hear about food, yes? This pasta is really good. It’s also fast and easy and full of flavor. The preschooler didn’t love it, though he did have a few bites. I think he’ll learn to like it. He has no choice because it’s so good, I’m not going to stop making it!

A couple of notes:
- Feel free to swap in dried thyme for fresh if you don’t have any.
-The vinegar gives the pasta a little tang and acid, but if you don’t like it or LOVE IT and want more of it, feel free to skip or add more. I also like a little sprinkle of vinegar splashed on at the end.
-I add the cheese at the end as a garnish, but fee free to add up to a cup of cheese while the pasta is still hot and mixing it in with the melting butter to make a thicker sauce.
-Julia would be APPALLED by how much I crowd the mushrooms when I make this dish. I can’t help it. I have no sense of volume when it comes to mushrooms and the appropriate pan in which to cook them. I find that it doesn’t really matter. They cook down significantly, so as long as you’re okay with rescuing a few escaped shrooms at the start of cooking while you give things a mix, eventually, they’ll all fit in the pan just fine.

Mushroom pasta

Yield: 5-6 adult servings
Time: 25 minutes, mostly active

14 oz-1 lb whole wheat pasta, cooked until al dente
4 Tbsp butter, divided
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 large shallots, thinly sliced
1 leek, halved and thinly sliced
1 lb mixed mushrooms, sliced
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp fresh thyme (3-4 stems), or ½ tsp dried
½ Tbsp red wine vinegar (or more to taste)
Salt/ pepper to taste
Nutty cheese, such as Parmesan, Gruyere, Romano, or Gouda

Cook pasta in well-salted water.

In a large skillet, melt 2 Tbsp butter and 1 Tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Add the shallots and leeks and let cook for 5 minutes until translucent and soft., stirring frequently to avoid browning.

Add the mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms start to cook down and release some of their juices. If they haven’t cooked enough at the 5-minute mark, keep going until there’s a fair amount of liquid in the pan.

Add the garlic and let cook for 1 minute, or until fragrant.

Add the vinegar and let cook until evaporated, about 1 more minute.

Season the mushroom mixture with salt and pepper to taste.

Drain the pasta, but don’t go crazy- a little water will help keep the pasta loose. Add the noodles to the mushroom mixture along with the remaining 2 Tbsp of butter. Stir well and turn off the heat. Taste again for seasoning and serve immediately.

Kale mac and cheese

Mac and cheese is a perennial favorite for a reason. You can quickly make a huge batch and reheat it as needed. It’s perfect filler for lunchboxes or to whip up for dinner. And you can throw in any old proteins or veggies you have lying around. And it gets eaten. Huzzah!

Take me to the recipe!

So! Easter and Passover just happened/are happening. My kiddo is at the age where he asks a lot of questions about everything, the deeper the subject, the better. The other day he hit me with, “Before I was born, where was I?”

Let me be clear: He was NOT asking where babies come from. He was asking a philosophical question about personhood. He wanted to know where his “self” resided before he had a body. He didn’t put it in those words, but that was the gist.

WHAT? WHY?

As you can imagine, religious holidays are tricky for us because this kid is constantly asking questions and we don’t always have great answers. “Why didn’t the Easter Bunny come to our house” was a little easier to handle than “Am I going to die?” but it was still tough! I stayed away from talking about religion and talked more about traditions, but I know that the questions are going to keep coming and get EVEN MORE complicated as his awareness grows.

Since parenting has required so much mental gymnastics for us lately, I want to keep dinner as simple as possible. So, Mac and Cheese!

As you may or may not know, I prefer a stovetop mac and cheese to the baked kind. I feel like the baking process can dry out the sauce, which is not tasty, IMO.

A couple of notes:

• Do cook the kale a bit before pureeing. The more you cook the greens, the smoother the sauce will be. I only cook it for a few minutes though because I don’t want to lose too many of the nutrients.

• Turn down the heat when making the sauce. It takes a bit longer, but will hopefully keep the milk solids from separating, which can make dairy-based sauces look curdled.

Kale mac and cheese

Time: About 25 minutes, mostly active
Yield: About 4 cups or 30 oz

1 lb small, dry pasta
1 bunch Lacinto kale, leaves stripped off of the tough center ribs
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
2 cups milk, divided (I used whole, but you can certainly use a lower fat variety if you like)
½ cup reserved pasta/kale cooking water
6-7 cups shredded cheese (combination of any nutty cheese like cheddar, gruyere, gouda, and Parmesan)
1 tsp garlic powder
½ tsp sea salt
Several cracks of black pepper

Cook pasta according to package directions.

While the pasta cooks, melt the butter over medium-high heat in a large sauce pan. Add the flour, stir well, and let bubble for 1 minute.

Turn the heat down to medium-low, add 1 and 1/2 cups of milk, and whisk to combine.

Add garlic, salt, and pepper to the milk and stir to combine. Let the milk heat up until there are small bubbles forming along the sides of the pan, about 3-4 minutes. Add the cheese and stir until melted, allowing the cheese sauce to bubble slowly, but try not to get the sauce too hot, about 4-5 more minutes.

Remove pasta from boiling water and add kale to that same water. Blanch for 2 minutes and remove greens to a blender. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water.

Add the remaining ½ cup of milk to the green in the blender and puree until smooth, adding the reserved cooking water as necessary to puree the kale.

Add the greens to the cheese sauce and stir well. Allow the mixture to come up to a simmer again.

When both are cooked, combine 2 cups of the sauce with the cooked pasta and stir well. Add any additional toppings you might like.

Sloppy Joe baked potatoes

These baked potatoes are dressed up with healthier turkey sloppy Joe filling for a tasty, healthy, and easy version of this kid-friendly sandwich.

Take me to the recipe!

M used to love sloppy Joes. LOVE THEM. However, when offered these, he declined saying, “I didn’t order that.” SOMEONE GAVE HIM THE GIFT OF SASS FOR HIS FOURTH BIRTHDAY AND I AM NOT HERE FOR IT.

After calmly explaining that I am, in fact, not his waitress, he proceeded to eat a dinner of pickles, cheese, and guacamole, all of which were the toppings and “safe” options I’d put out with the sloppy Joes. You win some, you lose some.

I’ve explained before how we started serving one family meal and adding lots of “safe” options as alternatives for M so that he can self-direct at dinner. Sometimes that means an apple and almond butter on the table or lots of condiments like pickles, olives, and cheese. Guacamole is usually reliable. But sometimes that means he doesn’t eat a ton for dinner and I’m slowly learning to be okay with that.

So, sloppy Joes, while traditionally a very kid-friendly option, were for the grownups in our house. But I have hope for the future.

What tends to appeal about Sloppy Joes is their sweetness, but I find that when the filling gets too sweet (like, when a recipe calls for a cup of ketchup), it can become cloyingly sweet. Also, who needs to eat all of that sugar for dinner?

However, the signature sloppy Joe flavor gets lost when you omit sweetener entirely, so I’ve included the bare minimum of brown sugar (2 tsp!) in this recipe. You can also wait to add it until the very end to decide for yourself if you really need it!

Sloppy Joe baked potatoes

Yield: 3 cups or 23 oz
Time: between 60-75 minutes (35 minutes active time)

4 large Russet potatoes
2 Tbsp olive oil
Flaky sea salt

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 lb ground turkey
½ medium white onion, minced (about ¾ cup)
1 medium stalk celery, minced (about ¼ cup)
1 small carrot, peeled and minced (a scant ½ cup)
2 large cloves garlic, minced 
½ cup water, divided
6 oz tomato paste (one small can, about 10 Tbsp)
2 Tbsp yellow mustard
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp malt vinegar (or whatever vinegar you have on hand), plus more for the potatoes
2 tsp brown sugar (optional)
2 tsp flaky sea salt, divided

Optional garnishes: cheese, pickles, pickles jalapenos, guacamole, sour cream, yogurt, coleslaw

1. Preheat the oven to 400.

2. Scrub 4 potatoes thoroughly and prick all over with a fork or small paring knife. I usually do 10-12 stabs per potato.

3. Brush the outside skin with a very thin coating of olive oil. You should have some of the 2 Tbsp left over. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt.

4. Place the potatoes on a sheet pan and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the skin is crisp and the potato is fork tender.

5. While the potatoes cook, heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat for 1-2 minutes. Add the ground turkey and chop the meat into small pieces with the end of your spatula or spoon. Stir a few times and reduce the heat to medium low.

6. Chop the onions and add to the pan, stirring a few times.

7. Repeat with the celery, carrots, and garlic, letting each vegetable cook while you prep the next one.

8. Cook and stir until the turkey is fully cooked and no pink remains. The whole process of cooking the turkey and veggies should take about 13-15 minutes.

9. Turn the flame back up to medium and let the turkey and veggies brown slightly. When they begin sticking to the pan a bit (about 3-4 minutes), pour in ¼ cup of water and scrape the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

10. Add the tomato paste, mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp salt, and brown sugar (if using), and mix well. If the mixture seems too dry, add the other ¼ cup of water. If you’ve added all of the water and it seems too wet, let the mixture bubble for a few minutes until your sauce has thickened.

11. When the potatoes are done, carefully remove the pan from the oven and, using an oven mitt on one hand to steady the potato, cut it open with a sharp knife, being careful of the steam that escapes.

12. Pour a few drops of malt vinegar and a large pinch of sea salt into each opened potato. Top with 1/2 -3/4 cup of the turkey mixture.

Purple kale and cabbage salad

Yada yada yada…take me to the recipe

Do your kids eat salad?

Leafy greens are hit or miss around here, as are all foods these days. M is doing a lot of refusing to eat at meals— and not just healthy stuff, but ALL stuff— and the struggle is real.

I follow @kids.eat.in.color on Instagram and her feed is a sanity saving reminder that kids’ appetites change dramatically from day to day and week to week for a variety of reasons, so I’m trying not to sweat this testing phase. I think it has a lot to do with control and independence because when he gets really hungry, he eats. Last night he took down about 8 homemade dumplings, peanut noodles, broccoli, and scallion pancakes.

I actually talked to a dietitian friend about it and her mealtime strategy is to serve everyone the same main dish, but to also put bread and hummus on the table so that her kiddos have an alternative if they aren’t into the main. If they ask for something else, her response is a gentle but firm, “Sorry, that’s not on the menu tonight.”

I LOVE this strategy and am going to implement it on our table. An apple with almond butter is M’s go-to if he doesn’t like what I’ve made. So instead of letting that be the end point of a power struggle, I’m just going to start putting it out on the table as a way to de-fang this dinner time dance we’re doing.

I just want to make sure that I don’t take the joy out of eating for M, you know?

I recently read the book The Eating Instinct and it was fascinating. The author talks about how we start off using food for comfort and connection when feeding infants, but pivot to a whole different way of looking at food for older kids and throughout our lives. Sure, food is medicine and can be vital to our health, but it’s also love and community and comfort and it should be all of those things.

Another of my takeaways from the book is that our culture’s messaging around food really undermines our ability to trust ourselves to know what and how much to eat. I really don’t want to do that to M. I want to trust him that if he’s had two bites of dinner, he really is done.

I realize what a privilege it is that I get to worry about my kid not eating a kale salad. I mean, it may not get bougier than that, right? So, I also want to let that bit of perspective slow my roll when I start to get worried or frustrated that he isn’t eating.

Anyhoo, when things are working normally, I have a few tricks to getting M to eat salad:
1) Let him help with mixing the salad and tossing in the dressing.
2) Cut everything really small.
3) AAC, or Always Add Croutons: Bread is pretty safe for most kids and the added crunch can be a fun textural element.
4) Deconstruct: If your kids like to isolate textures, you can also deconstruct the salad so they eat each element on its own.

This salad is lovely and complex, but shockingly simple. I made it with just carrots the day I took photos, but it’s better with the roasted radishes and carrots. The carrots are sweet, which is great for kids, but the radishes add a slightly bitter edge that balances that sweetness. Roasting the radishes also takes away about 99 percent of the bite, though, so they’re very mellow.

Don’t skip rubbing the bread with garlic once it’s toasted and before you cut it into croutons. So so good.

And don’t be shy with salt. Salads are so much better with salt.

Purple kale and cabbage salad

1 small bunch purple carrots, peeled and sliced into large chunks
3-4 thick slices of pumpernickel bread
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
Large pinch of salt
1 bunch purple kale
½ small purple cabbage
½- ¾ cup balsamic vinaigrette (recipe below)
1 large clove garlic, cut in half
Aged gouda (optional)

Preheat the oven to 425.

Make the dressing (see recipe below).

Prep the carrots. Toss with 1 1/2- 2 Tbsp olive oil and a pinch of salt.

On the same sheet pan, place thick slices of bread and brush with the remaining olive oil and top with a pinch of salt.

Roast the carrots and bread for 10 minutes. Remove the bread slices and return the veg to the oven. Cook, checking for doneness every 5 minutes.

While the vegetables and bread are roasting, chop the kale and cabbage into very small pieces and toss well with the dressing. Set aside.

When the bread is still hot, but you’re able to handle it, rub the raw garlic over the crusty bread. Cut into small cubes and set aside.

(If you plan to make this salad ahead and serve after a few hours, stop assembling at this step. Store your cheese, croutons, and roasted vegetables separately and assemble the components just before serving.)

Add the carrots and croutons to the salad and toss. Top with slices or shreds of cheese and serve immediately.

Balsamic vinaigrette

1 small or ½ large shallot
1 small garlic clove
½ cup olive oil
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
½ tsp kosher salt
½ tsp Dijon mustard
Pepper to taste

Add all ingredients to a small blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Check the seasoning. Dressing will keep in the refrigerator, covered, for up to 2 weeks.

Yield: about 1¼ cups or 9 oz